Bobby Thompson was the class of the field as he took a magnificent lights-to-flag victory at Snetterton in the first of the weekend’s VW Racing Cup races.
Starting from pole position, the Team HARD driver made a superb getaway with Joe Fulbrook in second place unable to attack as he was defending from a hard-charging Jack Walker-Tully who wanted to pull away into second place as soon as possible.
Walker-Tully managed to make a move on Fulbrook going into Agostini and looked to try and close in on Thompson who, by the end of the second lap, had an almost three second gap.
Another man on the move was Robert Barrable, starting seventh on the grid he wasted no time in clawing himself up the field. Making up a place at the start, he found himself in third place by the end of the third lap having easily dispatched those ahead of him.
As those battles were going on in the top five, Thompson set about extending his already comfortable lead at the top of the standings. In the sunny conditions at Snetterton, he smashed the lap record twice in two laps during the early stages of the race, setting a 2:06.626 to beat the previous record by more than one second.
After that, the race seemed to settle down as the clock ticked down to zero and the tyres started to go off, the only significant mover was Joe McMillan who moved up to fourth place on lap seven only to make a mistake at Oggies to move him back down to fifth.
Barrable also found himself up to second place as the speed in his Golf managed to push him into runner up spot but couldn’t get him any closer to leader Bobby Thompson who had cushioned himself with a six second gap.
As the chequered flag fell, Thompson led Barrable with Walker-Tully claiming the last podium spot. Joe Fulbrook was fourth with McMillan just holding on to fifth with Phil House menacing him from sixth.